Monday, February 18, 2008

Pondering the need for immunity…

Happy Monday y’all!

Let’s jump right on in, shall we?

This bitch and C-Money watched 60 Minutes last night.

One of the segments dealt with a drug that has been linked to the deaths of patientsafter surgery. It focused on the two year delay between the point at which independent research pointed to the link and the drug (Trasylol) was finally pulled from the market by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The researcher who discovered the link believes that one thousand lives per month would have been saved had the drug been pulled sooner rather than later.

Bayer, the company that manufactures Trasylol, did a study of the study and the results supported the original conclusion that the drug in question was linked to patient deaths. But Bayer kept that information to themselves…even at an FDA hearing on the subject…with the estimated total loss of life numbering one thousand people per month.

Bayer wasn’t trying to talk to 60 Minutes…no surprise there. They sent a letter saying some shit about risk-benefit profiles that would have driven me to the point of violence had someone I love died as a result of this drug.

The FDA took a pass on an interview too.

Here’s the thing that really caught my attention - despite the loss of life and the apparent negligence in delaying any alert to the medical community and public, the FDA has taken no action against Bayer. We the people are supposed to take comfort in the fact that Bayer suspended two employees for failing to disclose the conclusions of that second study done on the original study that backed up the study being studied.

11 comments:

Congress can't be bothered with Bush Admin officials, drug company officials or anyone else who has lied to them under oat. They need to go after baseball players right now. They'll get to that unimportant stuff later if there's time. ;-)

You're spot on with that, Shark-Fu! Hey, the real terrorist threat is right in here in the USA........fuck bin Laden, he didn't shoot up three high school and one college last week; he had nothing to do with allowing fucked up beef to be delivered to our school children; nor did he allow Bayer and the fucked up Bush-appointed FDA cronies to KNOWINGLY watch thousands die from that bullshit drug! September eleventh? Shit, bin laden can't compete with our own homegrown greedy-ass terrorist!dandy

I am almost certain my mother was given this drug during a supposedly -routine surgery that went wrong back in the late 80s... but my mother is gone, and I do not even remember that doctor or hospital's name. And I just wonder how many other people are thinking that today, after watching that?

You got enough money, you can do whatever the hell you effing please in the USA...

I really don't know how people sleep at night. How much money went into bribing FDA officials over this?

I would guess drug companies spend billions of dollars "influencing" people, which partly explains why the cost of meds is so high people are dying because they can't afford them.

There are so many things in our society to be outraged about, most of us are spinning in circles, sputtering in disbelief over one outrage after another. There are so many and they're coming at us so fast, it leaves the public too overwhelmed to affect any change and hold people accountable.

That's exactly what politicians, drug manufacturers, and all greedy rich people are counting on.

The FDA and the rest of the government is a joke, a bad joke. They boast about the high standards they have for drugs in the US that keep half the drugs and procedures effectively being used in other countries off the market here... THEN the drugs and treatments they use here kill us or leave us with other health problems...

And the bottom line ends up in more money for them and the pharmaceutical companies..

This is the game they have played FOREVER.. They make too much money to give a shit about any of us!

I stopped eating beef five years ago and this week argued with beef eaters over the truth and safety of our food. The only good thing is that the mainstream press is covering the beef story so more people are informed and hopefully enlightened. With the beef thing, animals and children - voiceless - were put at risk.